Left To Rot
by FlameCatcher
Summary: What if, when Lightning is sent to investigate, Shima's friends abandon him? Prompt by Elaine Weasly, rated T for violence.


**So, this is a dare/prompt by Elaine Weasly. In this story, chapter 65 goes somewhat differently; no one trusts Shima, and they are quite open about it. So, this is how I imagine things going.**

 **Prompts! :** **topic/175540/130456979/1/#132721122**

* * *

Shima looked around him in complete disbelief.

Everyone, even Rin, was avoiding his starstruck stare. Lightning leaned back in his seat, absorbing the scene. It probably wasn't everyday that he got to see a double agent get abandoned by his friends, even the ones he'd known since birth.

Then again, he thought bitterly, what did you expect?

He had left them. He had kidnapped Izumo in front of them and almost gotten her killed in the whole Nine tails business. Not to mention that before that they had been put in cell with deformed, immortal zombies.

No, they had no reason to trust him.

And that was far from preferable. Sure, being a spy was all about betraying even the closest of friends, but one would have thought that gaining their trust back would be easy. Especially since he'd been lying straight to their faces for years on end.

In his musings, a cold sweat suddenly swept over him. Mephisto, despite being the one who came up with the spy idea, was quiet also. Perhaps it was because he knew that his word was just as weak on the Grigori. Or maybe he was planning this all along. Surely, he'd have plans about using Shima's imprisonment as a way to come clean to the Vatican.

"I'm sorry kid." Lightning said finally. "If your friends can't trust you, I can't help you." He got up boredly and, if his hunch was right, a little dissapointed. Maybe the odd Exorcist had expected a different outcome?

Knowing full well what it meant, Shima got up as well. Keeping his head straight and his shoulders squared was much harder than he thought. There was no way he could accept this! Why wouldn't anyone help him? Why wouldn't they look at him?

* * *

He didn't scream.

No matter how many times the Paladin's heavy hand found his face, Shima didn't protest. He felt empty. Betrayed.

He wondered if that was how Bon and Koneko had felt when they saw him in the heli with Izumo over his shoulder.

Inarguably, there was no worse punishment that this empty feeling.

The lack of reaction wasn't enough to deter Angel though. Every time he went bigger, struck the boy harder. When he found himself sweating and the boy at his feet, bloodied and broken like forgotten porcelain, he stopped.

Getting answers out of an unconscious prisoner was too difficult, even for him.

* * *

"He wasn't our friend." Bon repeated for the tenth time that day. Lately, it had become his own personal mantra, a sentence imprinted on the inside of his eyelids. And yet, he always found himself searching deep into his memory for something- anything- he had missed.

Rin didn't seem to feel the same way.

"And torture is the way to go about it?" He half-yelled, making Shiemi wince.

"If it helps in the fight against-"

"Cut the bullshit, damn it!" Rin yelled. No blue flames sprung to life, but he wasn't far from calling them to existence either. There was a flare in his eyes that Bon had never seen before, not even when Rin was fighting Amaimon.

"You know we should have helped him! All we needed to do was just say we trusted him!"

Finally, Bon had had enough. Despite Rin's reflexes, he wasn't prepared for what came next; Bon had grabbed the raven haired boy by the collar while his other fist was ready to fire.

"Then why didn't you? Huh? Why didn't you say anything?!" When no answer came, Bon's grip on his shirt relaxed.

"You keep preaching about how horrible we all are, yet you yourself didn't move an inch to save him!"

"He's beyond us now anyway." Izumo said nonchalantly. "We can't very well break into the Vatican and bust him out."

"But you did do that when we were in Kyoto..."

"Kyoto had a shortage in staff, and we had Shura's help. This is the Vatican we're talking about. If we could get in, we wouldn't get very far." Koneko countered.

"Well, we can't just leave him! What if he is actually a good guy?" Rin continued.

"He didn't kill them..." Izumo mumbled, immediately drawing everyone's gaze to herself.

"Uke and Mikke. He had the chance to kill them with his flames, but he didn't. Even if he thought I would be unable to use them afterwards, he wouldn't have been careless about it." She explained.

Bon pursued his lip. "Mom will _murder_ me if she finds out...I hope you can run fast, Rin, 'cause it's your ass on the line."

* * *

Angel had moved up from senseless beating. The endless torture instruments that were spread out in trays around Shima was proof enough.

If they weren't getting used on him, he might have been amazed by Angel's ability to use even half of them.

Of course, his nails were first. By the time his ring finger's nail came out in bloody bits, the pain had become too much to handle. Angel stepped back, satisfied with the results.

"Are you going to answer me now, or are you going to lose more nails?"

"I told, I don't know!" Shima yelled desperate in-between gasps. "They didn't trust me enough! They knew I was a spy!"

"Lie!" The tongs collided with Shima's cheekbone and the room echoes with the crunching of bones. "You are an Illuminati spy." Angel said firmly. "And you," the swung the instrument again, breaking the other side of Shima's face. "Were sent here to gather information."

"What kind of information?" He asked, punctuating every word. As if to make his question understood, he lifted one booted foot and pressed it against Shima's abdomen. His thorax groaned in protest as the bones slowly bent inwards.

Struggling to catch his breath, Shima screamed.

* * *

The lower levels of the Vatican were a miserable sight indeed. Not scary, as Rin had thought, but he was happy not to have spent any time down here. Staring at empty brick walls for hours would be enough to make him suicidal.

If there was something scary about this situation though, it was that he felt alone. The clothes he and the others wore made them invisible, even to themselves. They made sure not to talk at all while trying to find a way further down, but it only made matters difficult. Rin was no longer sure if the others were still there or if they had separated.

Someone grabbed him and pulled him toward the wall. Before Rin could scream in terror, he realised he wasn't, in fact, alone. One of his friends had pulled him out of an Exorcist's way as said man walked down the hall. Silently, they followed him until he reached an elevator and waiting patiently with him for the lift's din.

Thankfully, the elevator was empty and quite spacious. They slipped in before him and pressed their backs against the walls, careful not to so much as breathe loudly.

As the lift descended- thank God he was going down- the Exorcist started whistling, probably bored out of his mind. Rin didn't get that. How could a sane man whistle to himself while a sixteen year old boy was being tortured in the same building. It was the first time Rin questioned his decision to become Paladin.

Then again, doing so would mean that he could change the way the Order works. Until then, he would have to endure their corruption. Hopefully it would prove a small price to pay.

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open to reveal a long, dim-lit hallway. Down here, the stonework was older, maybe a thousand years or more. The thought made Rin shudder; as a rule, he wasn't particularly fond of crypts, which this place obviously used to be.

As they followed the Exorcist, a sound started becoming clearer and clearer. Rin at first thought that it was the echo of footsteps in the old hallways, or maybe even water running above them. Unfortunately, as they stopped in front of a steel door, Rin realised those sound were very human and very familiar.

The Exorcists punched in a pass code on the keypad next to the door, and it slid open to reveal a bloodied Angel, hunched over something.

From over the Exorcist's shoulder, Rin wasn't sure if whatever it was Angel was busying himself with was human, or even alive. But it was. There was no doubt.

"Sir?" The Exorcist cleared his throat. Angel turned around irritably, and Rin caught a glimpse of what had become of Shima. He looked thin and crooked, his cheeks were sunken in and swollen at the same time, as was every other visible part of his flesh. Even his black roots had begun showing under the flat, bloodied mess that was his pink hair.

Rin's stomach flipped over as he saw how much blood there was around him. None of it was Angel's, obviously.

"What is it?" Angel's sharp voice brought him back to reality.

"Lightning needs to speak to you. Said it was important." Reluctantly, Angel tossed a rusted iron contraption on a tray next to Shima and followed the Exorcist outside.

"Take him to the infirmary." He ordered.

The 'infirmary', was nothing like Rin had expected. It was in the same floor as the torture room, for one. The machinery and the medicine that cluttered the shelves were definitely from another century. Hell, even the bandages looked ancient and dirty and yet the allowed them to come in contact with Shima's skin.

Yukio, he thought, would've preferred to burn the place down before he even tried to make improvements.

After the Exorcist was gone, the Exwires were finally alone with Shima. Only he was unconscious, probably for the best. The procedure of breaking his ribs to set them straight again was painful to even listen to.

"This." Izumo hissed, appalled. "This is balance? This is what the Order stands for?"

Rin didn't know what to answer. Neither did anyone else. Instead, they pulled their enchanted cloaks off, and felt an odd relief in seeing each other's faces again.

"We can't move him. Especially not like that." Koneko pointed out.

"We have to find a way." Bon said with a determined expression. "Angel will be back any moment."

"Not really." This time, Rin couldn't fight back the yelp of terror. Neither did Shiemi, or anyone else in the room. Well, with the exception of two, obviously.

"As physically able as Angel is, he doesn't have much in way o' thinking." Lightning grinned at them mischievously. "Poor fool's probably still looking for me."

Izumo pulled her papers out, ready to summon her familiars.

"We can't let him escape!" She yelled. Lightning waved his hand dismissively.

"If I was here to bust you, do you really think you five would be enough to stop me?"

"Take the kid and go. I'll come up with something." He said and slipped his Infinity key inside the infirmary's door.

"Just like that?" Bon gasped in disbelief.

"Well, the portal can carry a maximum of three people, but I doubt I have enough time to open it twice. You and the girls have to go out the way you came." The older man said, pointing at Konekomaru. "As for you two, you carry him through. It's connected to Mephistopheles's office."

"But...but why?" Rin asked.

"The Grigori and Angel want this Illuminati business over and done with. Me, you'll find, I'm very different. Ah, but I suppose there will be time for that later, hm?"

Carefully, Rin and Bon lifted Shima from the bed; Bon had wrapped his arms around his torso while Rin held on to his legs. He was surprisingly light.

* * *

"Well, this'll be a bitch to pull off." Lewin muttered to himself.

"Hush now. You did well."

"Angel might disagree."

"Angel's a fool like the rest of them. Just tell him what I told you to."

"But-"

"No buts. Shima Renzo is an asset that cannot be lost. Now off with you."

Lewin bit back the oncoming argument. It was, after all, his job to do things without asking questions.

* * *

 **Okay, so the last bit is a little weird. Just think of the shadowy figure in chapter 67. I mean, if Lewin was glad that the Exwires vouched for Shima, it** _ **might**_ **mean that they have something in common. And since we don't know if that figure is an Illuminati agent or a third party (which I think is more likely, but whatever), I decided to go with Lewin being also a spy. Anyhow, I tried to make it seem like the other person in this bit is the guy/gall from chapter 67. That is all.**


End file.
